Andy Blogs About Manchester Orchestra / Thrice Split

PEOPLE! it's andy. i wanted to take a minute and thank you for the response the last few days to the news about some "new" music. we are so stoked to get this thing officially out into the world, even if there are only a couple hundred copies available. the story behind the making of our half of this record is a pretty cool one. i thought i would share with you the history behind why we decided to record what is undeniably THE BEST 14 minute stoner-rock version of "Don't Speak" by No Doubt to ever exist.

when manchester was writing mean everything to nothing i was in the middle of helping them produce the first O'Bro EP "the death of day". we would usually do pre production on monday nights at the manchester practice space. manchester finished up writing for the day and i started playing a c minor and singing the first lines of "don't speak"… we all sort of laughed… then we all sort of jammed… then the light bulb went off. "i am going to have to call o'bro and tell them we can't do preproduction tonight because we must record a cover of this song with each member of both bands. luckily they were game so we all met at Dan Hannon and Brad Fishers studio "Vintage Song" at about 11 pm and started mapping it out. we recorded it all live in the same room. the set up was like this… 3 electric guitars (me, robert, johnny) 1 baritone (aaron), 1 acoustic guitar (our buddy averso), piano (tanner), 2 bass players (anton and j) and chris on drums. i don't think i'm missing anybody but looking back now the evening registers a tad "foggy". we recorded the song twice. the first take was 23 minutes long. we listened to and said "that's a little much"… went back in and recorded the second version the comes in at about 14 minutes.

manchester and o'brother have been sitting on this song for a long time. when MO did a co-headline tour with thrice (O'Bro opening) in the spring of 2009, we asked thrice to add a song so we could print up a proper split. well, like most vinyl things get delayed and it just so happened that by the time the vinyl came to us on the road (where we intentionally planned on selling it) the tour was abruptly cancelled due to a family emergency. these vinyls have been sitting in our warehouse ever since. so i called up the thrice guys and asked if they were still interested in releasing it and here we are.

the vinyl is a clear 12 inch. due to the length of both songs we were not able to make this a 7 inch and we have around 400 of them in stock. the other 100 are out there somewhere… we have no idea where, how, or why.

THE VINYL WILL BE AVAILABLE FRIDAY @ 3PM EST exclusively through our web store. (link below)

unfortunately, we are not able to offer a digital download for sale with the vinyl. this is because of the licensing fees and legalities we would have to pay no doubt and the beatles. frankly i don't really want to mess with no doubt and i definitely don't want to mess with the beatles.

we hope those of you who get a vinyl can help share the musical love. if SOMEHOW in this digital age, the mp3 somehow mysteriously appears… its alright with us :)

there will be lots of new music coming your way at some time or another. we are writing at a feverish pace and i think the songs sound really loud, aggressive, fast, catchy, and angry. they sound exactly like we want them to.